‘You don’t have to understand it, just support it,’ Shaheen Bhatt to people who are dismissive of mental health

Among the many celebrities who have been vocal about their struggles with mental health is Shaheen Bhatt, who has not shied away from talking about experiencing episodes of anxiety and depression even since she was a child. Now, she has spoken up about how the experience becomes worse when people — especially when it is close friends and family members — do not understand the problem and become dismissive about it.
On her mental health platform ‘Here Comes The Sun’, in conversation with singer-songwriter Ananya Birla, the author spoke about how she deals with people who are dismissive of mental health.
“For me, it depends on how close the person is. Like, if it is on social media I don’t usually engage in it because I realise that somebody else’s opinion on me, my mental health, or mental health, in general, is none of my business. It is their thing,” she said.

Adding, she said that if, on the other hand, it is someone who is close to her or “somebody whom I have to engage with consently” then her instinct is to “inform where I can.”
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Shaheen Bhatt however, added that she feels it is not necessary for a person to understand what one goes through. “If it is somebody close to me then you don’t have to believe it, you don’t have to understand it, just support it,” she added.

Earlier, she had opened up about experiencing a panic attack in over seven years, and how “it feels like you are dying.”
“I had my first panic attack in seven years, just a month and a half ago. And I had completely forgotten how to deal with them because I hadn’t had one for so long,” she told Ananya.

She said that earlier she was facing panic attacks quite regularly and hence had made a set system to cope, “but, this time I was… it completely took me surprise,” she added.

“The thing with a panic attack is, it feels like you are dying… you don’t realise that it is just panic, or this is just [the] nervous system going into overdrive, which is what it is,” the 33-year-old added.

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